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Photos by Michael Hession.

The Best USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Updated January 22, 2018

Your guides

Patrick Austin

Ray Aguilera

After more than 14 hours of new research and testing, we found that the 64 GB SanDisk Extreme CZ80 USB 3.0 Flash Drive is still the best flash drive for most people—while you can get it. With both PCs and Macs, the SanDisk Extreme CZ80 offers the best combination of speed, price, capacity, and usability of any thumb drive we’ve found.

The SanDisk Extreme CZ80 is the same flash drive we’ve recommended for years. SanDisk has given it several quiet speed boosts since we first tested it, and the current version, the 64 GB Extreme CZ80, hits the sweet spot for price and capacity. Unfortunately, SanDisk is discontinuing the Extreme CZ80, but we’ll continue to recommend it as long as you can still buy it for a good price.

If you can’t find the Extreme CZ80 or it gets too expensive, its successor, the SanDisk Extreme Go USB 3.1 Flash Drive, will suffice. In our testing its read speeds were close to the CZ80’s, and while its write speeds in benchmarks were lower than we expected, in our actual file-copy tests it outperformed drives with better benchmark results, and it was more consistent in maintaining high transfer rates.

If you care more about capacity than speed, or if you want a drive that barely protrudes from a USB port, get the 128 GB Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit. It has a thumbnail-sized design that’s perfect for keeping on a keychain or plugged into your laptop as semipermanent storage. It isn’t nearly as fast as our pick or our runner-up, but it is less than a quarter the size and around half the price.

If you own a device that has only USB-C ports, such as a MacBook, but still regularly work with computers that have Type-A USB ports, get the Lexar JumpDrive C20c, which has both ports—one on each end. (It can even double as a charging cable.) It’s not as fast as our pick or our runner-up, but its versatile design will come in handy if you move data between USB-C and USB-A devices frequently.

If you already have a flash drive you like, pick up a USB-C–to–USB-A adapter so you can use it with your new device. (We like this one.) If you’re looking for even more speed and storage than our main pick offers, pass on an expensive flash drive and get a portable solid-state drive like the 250 GB Samsung T3 SSD instead—for just a little more money than you’d pay for a fast 128 GB flash drive, you get much better read and write speeds and twice the storage in a device around the size of a credit card.

Why you should trust us

Patrick Austin has spent over six years covering consumer technology and news for sites such as Ars Technica, Consumer Reports, and PCMag, and was the technology editor for business magazine Black Enterprise.

Ray Aguilera was the reviews editor at Mac|Life, where he oversaw all product reviews for four years. He’s also an avid music fan and DJ, and he frequently uses USB drives to shuttle media between different devices.

Who should get this

A flash drive—aka thumb drive or memory stick—still offers one of the easiest ways to move large amounts of data from one computer to another locally. Unlike with online cloud storage services, you have no need to worry about dealing with email-attachment restrictions, struggling with slow connection speeds, losing your Internet connection during a transfer, or having someone snoop on your activity. You can just walk from one computer to another.

Pull Quote

Don’t buy a USB 2.0 drive. They’re too slow and won’t save you money.

For the occasional data swap between computers, you don’t need a fancy new high-speed flash drive. Just dig around in the bottom of your laptop bag for one of those generic freebie drives you might have picked up somewhere, or grab a cheap one online. (You can buy a 32 GB USB 3.0 drive for under $10 now.)

If you’re going to buy a flash drive, don’t buy a USB 2.0 drive—they’re too slow and won’t save you money. Our budget pick, the thumbnail-sized Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit, is the same price as the best-selling USB 2.0 drives on Amazon, and it’s so small, you could even leave it plugged in as semipermanent storage. Next to the speediest USB 2.0 drives, it’s five times faster reading data and twice as fast writing.

If you regularly move large sets of data from one device to another—say, complete seasons of TV shows, or large media files like raw photos and video—and you have a USB 2.0 drive, you should upgrade. The time you save waiting for large copy jobs to complete is well worth parting with a few dollars. A file transfer that takes half an hour with a USB 2.0 drive can happen in under five minutes with our pick.

On the other hand, since flash drives are best used as temporary storage—and they seem to disappear like cheap pens—it makes sense not to spend too much on one. Plus, price isn’t always the best indicator of performance, and expensive drives aren’t always worth the money: If you need ultrafast write speeds or more than 128 GB of storage, you’re better off with a portable solid-state drive.

How we picked

All flash drives incorporate solid-state memory and a USB plug. Good flash drives have fast sequential read speeds (for accessing data on the drive) and sequential write speeds (for copying data to the drive). Of the two, write speeds are almost always lower and can vary wildly based on the type of memory and controller a drive uses. Flash drives should maintain consistent performance during large file transfers.

Also important are a flash drive’s ease of use and its size. Too bulky, and you’re liable to block other inputs with it, or slowly damage the drive or USB ports as you squeeze the drive in next to an occupied port.

For this round of testing, we considered a fresh dozen USB drives (in addition to the hundred-plus we’ve looked at for previous editions of this guide), eliminating drives that were obviously slower or way more expensive than the SanDisk Extreme CZ80, our current pick. This process knocked out pretty much every “rugged” drive, as well as most models with hardware encryption—unless you really need those features, such drives are just too expensive for most people. (Plus, most flash drives are pretty durable, and software encryption can easily protect all the data on your drive.)

Although more and more laptops (including all of the models in Apple’s current MacBook lineup) are shipping with only USB Type-C ports—no traditional USB-A ports—we didn’t consider USB-C–only flash drives. Few people have only USB-C devices, and most devices still lack USB-C entirely. We instead looked at dual-port drives, which have both USB-A and USB-C connectors. These designs maximize compatibility while ensuring you can plug the drive into future devices. (We also tested our USB-A picks with a cheap USB-C adapter.)

Our picks, plus our favorite USB-A–to–USB-C adapter dongle.

How we tested

We used CrystalDiskMark to benchmark each drive on Windows and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on a Mac. We also tested real-world read and write speeds by copying 14 GB of media files from one drive to another. We performed each test three times and averaged the results. Although we chose drives based on computer use, we tested them for compatibility on a MacBook Air, a Dell XPS 13, an LG television, and a Sony PlayStation 4.

Our pick: SanDisk Extreme CZ80

The SanDisk Extreme CZ80’s sliding USB-connection mechanism lets you easily slide the USB plug in and out; you can feel it click when the plug is fully extended or collapsed.

Our pick, as long as it’s available, is the SanDisk Extreme CZ80 USB 3.0 Flash Drive. A version of the SanDisk Extreme has been our pick four years running thanks to its impressive performance and ease of use. It’s easy to handle, and it has a smooth sliding mechanism that clicks into place when the plug is fully extended or collapsed. It also comes with a lifetime limited warranty. Unfortunately, SanDisk has discontinued the CZ80 in favor of the Extreme Go, our runner-up pick, but the CZ80 is (for now) still available, and you should get it unless it’s more than $5 pricier than the Extreme Go.

We tested how fast each drive could read and write a folder containing 14 GB of media files. The blue bars represent our picks.

In CrystalDiskMark, the Extreme CZ80 had an average sequential read speed of 206 megabytes per second and an average write speed of 146 MB/s, ranking higher than all but the expensive SanDisk Extreme Pro and the Lexar P20, our previous runner-up. When we formatted the drives for Mac and used Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the CZ80 reached an average read speed of 254 MB/s and an average write speed of 170 MB/s. Transferring 14 GB of media took an average of 2 minutes, 29 seconds, the second-fastest transfer rate we’ve seen in our tests.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The Extreme CZ80 fits nearly everywhere, but its oblong shape means it’s a bit snug in closely spaced ports like those on Apple’s pre-2016 MacBook Pro and Air models.

Because nothing gold can stay, SanDisk is discontinuing the Extreme CZ80 and replacing it with the Extreme Go USB 3.1 Flash Drive, which looks nearly identical to the CZ80 but has slightly slower read and write speeds. For now, the CZ80 is still available, and as long as it’s not more than about $5 more expensive than the Extreme Go, you should get it.

If our main pick goes away: SanDisk Extreme Go

In our tests SanDisk’s Extreme Go had faster transfer speeds than nearly every drive we tried, but it was still a bit slower than our main pick.

If you can’t find the SanDisk Extreme CZ80 or it gets too expensive, the SanDisk Extreme Go USB 3.1 Flash Drive, its replacement, shares the CZ80’s smart design and is the next best thing. Even though SanDisk advertises the Extreme Go as a USB 3.1 model, it’s not any faster than its USB 3.0 predecessor, because it’s USB 3.1 Gen 1, which is the same thing as USB 3.0. Indeed, in our tests the Extreme Go didn’t do especially well in artificial benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark showed an average read speed of 181 MB/s and an average write speed of 58 MB/s. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on our Mac showed average read and write speeds of 182 MB/s and 106 MB/s, respectively. However, in our real-world file-copy tests the Extreme Go was both faster and more consistent in performance than every drive except the CZ80 and the much more expensive SanDisk Extreme Pro, maintaining a consistent transfer speed and writing our 14 GB media folder in an average of 3 minutes, 35 seconds.

Like the SanDisk Extreme CZ80, the Extreme Go comes with a limited lifetime warranty.

The tiny budget option: Samsung Fit

The Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit isn’t very fast, but it is affordable, and its profile is low enough for it to serve as semipermanent storage.

If you care more about storage than speed, the 128 GB Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit offers double the storage of our main pick for about the same price. It’s also tiny, making it ideal for semipermanent storage. It’s not great for fast transfers between devices, though: In our 14 GB file-copy test it had an average result of 10 minutes, 4 seconds, four times as long as the SanDisk Extreme CZ80 on the same test. The Fit gets warm to the touch during file transfers, but not unusually hot, unlike our previous pick, the very similar SanDisk Ultra Fit. Like the Ultra Fit, the Samsung Fit comes with a five-year limited warranty.

If you need USB-C: Lexar C20c

Lexar’s C20c works with both USB-A and USB-C devices, and doubles as a charging cable.

If you work with a computer that has only USB-C ports but you still regularly use computers with USB-A ports, consider the Lexar JumpDrive C20c dual-port drive. It’s essentially a 6-inch USB-C–to–USB-A cable with a built-in flash drive, which is a pretty good idea. You can plug it into either type of port and use it as a flash drive, or use it as a tiny charging cable to charge a USB-C device (such as an Android phone) on a USB-A port. If it’s plugged into two devices, both devices can see the flash drive’s storage (assuming the devices are configured correctly). In our tests it was slower than our top USB 3.0 picks, but it was the fastest dual drive we tried, with average read speeds of 121 MB/s and write speeds of 75 MB/s.

The C20c’s housings for both the USB-C and USB-A connectors are metal and feel solidly constructed. Though the C20c has a clip for folding the short cable on itself to save space, we don’t recommend doing this regularly—the tight curve deforms the cable and could eventually damage it. And Lexar’s one-year warranty, like the cable itself, is pretty short.

If you don’t need an extra USB-A–to–USB-C cable, if you want faster transfer speeds, or if you already have a decent flash drive like our main pick, consider instead a USB 3.0 A-to-C adapter—we like this model from Aukey. Our tests showed no difference in transfer speeds between having a flash drive plugged directly into a USB 3.0 port or connecting the drive through the adapter into a USB-C port. For the same price as you’d pay for the C20c, you can get our main pick plus two adapters, and you’ll have faster transfer speeds than with the C20c.

The competition

In the past four years we’ve researched and eliminated more than a hundred USB 3.0 flash drives. Most will do a fine job of moving data from one computer to another, but most just aren’t worth buying. They won’t set your computer on fire or eat your data; they’re just too slow, too expensive, or both. Our picks stand out for their combinations of speed and price.

The 128 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro is the fastest flash drive we tested. With its write speeds averaging 289 MB/s, it outstripped every competitor. Its read speeds averaged 300 MB/s, and it cleared our 14 GB file-copy test in 1 minute, 23 seconds, taking half the time our top pick did. It’s a great flash drive, but most people shouldn’t spend $80 on a flash drive. If you need that much fast storage, an extra $15 to $30 will get you the even faster 250 GB Samsung T3 portable SSD, which offers twice the capacity plus hardware encryption in a body about the size of a credit card.

We dismissed our previous runner-up, the Lexar JumpDrive P20, due to the introduction of SanDisk’s Extreme Go. During benchmark testing, the P20 offered an average read speed of 318 MB/s and an average write speed of 176 MB/s, outperforming the CZ80 and Extreme Go, but in our 14 GB real-world file-copy test it took more than five minutes, nearly twice as long as the CZ80 took and a minute and a half longer than the Extreme Go required. And unlike SanDisk’s fluid sliding mechanism on the CZ80, the P20’s mechanism was difficult to use and required enough force to leave an impression of the engraved arrow in our fingers.

The 128 GB PNY Pro Elite USB 3.0 Flash Drive looks good, but the sliding mechanism was a literal pain for us to use owing to its slippery metal body; sliding the USB connector into position required a pretty hefty amount of force. More important, in real-world writes it took three times as long as our pick.

The SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Flash Drive was our previous budget pick, but the Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Fit’s faster write speeds and lower operating temperature made it a logical replacement—many owner reviews for the Ultra Fit complain about overheating, while the reviews for the Samsung Fit don’t.

What to look forward to

At CES 2018, Western Digital debuted a new version of the SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.1 flash drive. The plug-and-play device is tiny, has 130 MB/s read speeds, and has hardware encryption. The Ultra Fit USB 3.1 will come in a 64 GB version for $60 and a 128 GB version for $120, and both will include a five-year warranty when they’re released later this spring.

Hi Fabio. I’m going to quote the editor of this guide, Wes Fenlon, as he is the person that would know. Here’s what he had to say regarding this–

-As for Windows to Go: this drive isn’t on the list of six drives Microsoft officially supports. However, that’s a specific Enterprise feature, and you should be able to install Windows 7 or Windows 8 on virtually any flash drive. Here are two good tutorials:

Seems pretty tricky. Alot of people are having trouble with double partition in order to boot up off of the USB.
Is there a way to make windows 7 portable like this? because Windows 8 blows.

Anonymous

Gotta disagree with this one only slightly, this is the second best. I compared both this and the Lexar which you tested here and the Lexar edges out for a number of reasons.

1. Like you said, the Sandisk has a higher maximum read than the lexar, but the write is slower, since you’re really going to be doing both (and for me, write is probably a bit more important when I’m running out the door) you want them pretty close.

2. I found the Lexar’s speeds to be much more consistent across all systems and file types, you’d be lucky to hit the Sandisk’s maximum. Overall, I was transferring files to and from the Lexar more quickly. Typically your going to see around 100 read on both drives, with the sandisk maybe getting an average of 10 over the lexar, but you’re going to see ~70 write from the Lexar compared to ~60 from the Sandisk with similar conditions. These are your kind of everyday average speeds on most computers, yeah, sometimes you’ll see some ~200 peaks or average closer to 150s on certain ports/computers, but what I’m saying is that the Lexar is better for your everyday file transfer speeds.

3. I don’t know how you gave points to the SanDisk for being “plastic” over metal? The Lexar is built to a high standard, feels good and solid in your hand and I’m not afraid to drop it or worse. It’s also not as long or bulky as the SanDisk, so it won’t stick out as much or take up space on crowded ports on laptops. It’s not “uncomfortable” in the least, it’s a solid flash drive with rounded corners. The switch is also very easy to use and does not dig in at all, I have no idea what your thumbs are made of, but it was fine for my dainty hands. The SanDisk however, seemed to get worse for the wear as time went on, feeling flimsier as you use it more and even making those awful creaky plasticky sounds.

4. Price is really the only part where SanDisk usually beats it, but you can find the Lexar like I did on sale for a few bucks cheaper on Newegg or Amazon and they come very close in price. And, really, you’re just paying for better quality.

*Now all that being said, the Sandisk would be the best choice IF you were running an OS or something off the stick. That would take full advantage of the great read speed and the 4k abilities of the drive, but that’s really more of a niche use. For most people, who use their drives to transfer files from one computer to another, the Lexar is the better all around choice.

Chixofnix

Thanks so much for your input!

I am in the market to replace my last 32GB 3.0 stick (Silicon Power, purchased in Japan if anyone is curious), as I’m really rough with my drives – they have a place in my toolbags and get physically abused.

In college I used a metal-bodied 8GB Sandisk (I think) drive that lasted for the better part of the 5.5 years I was there… at one point the two pieces of the “shell” came apart but were held together with a liberal amount of tape. I miss that drive =(.

Hi David. As long as it’s formatted properly (not NTFS) you should be good to go! This is pretty much standard with any USB drive. They work with any OS as long as they are formatted to have read/write access by said OS.

Mark Nakib

No mention at all of the Corsair Flash Voyager GT Turbo?

Paulb

Please format the one you have in NTFS and exFat. Most of the early reviews late last year were hand picked samples while the ones consumers were buying had would be bricked if you attempted to format. You can see those in the Amazon comments and the discussion boards. It is would be good to know if your sample is able to do this repeatedly without issue.

Matt

Are there any halfway decent small models? I’m looking for something to carry on my keychain.

Okc Dave

No, inclusion of a SSD controller and parallelized access of more than one flash die increases the size. Better question would be which is the fastest drive below a particular length, but I can’t help with that as I don’t know. People aren’t benching for that attribute.

julian

This.

While it’s great to know what USB drive to get if I want to run an OS from it, when I’m looking for a USB flash drive, it being compact enough to fit on my keychain/not stick out from my computer absurdly, is sort of key for me.

how likely is it that *every* single one of the SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 flash [thumb] drive will actually be as fast as the one reviewed?

The reason I ask is, I’ve had enough of the mediocre performance, and the ‘early’ failures, that many of the cheapie drives exhibit.

I’ve been installing a ‘nix distro to, 1st, 4GB drives, 2nd, to 8GB drives, then to 16GB drives, and I’m looking to upgrade to a 32GB, in the near future.

I’ve had a couple of drives work OK initially, then get either real flakey,
or just stop working altogether.

I know flash drives have a limited lifespan, but I’m talking about only using a handful of times, then kaput!

Okc Dave

Every single one with the same capacity, having the exact same extended model #, will be exactly the same speed. However, different host system USB3 controllers may vary some in speed.

Why would you pay a premium for a USB drive ‘nix installation instead of using an SSD? Normally anyone else’s computer you come across would already have a usable OS on it so no need to boot ‘nix and on your own, might as well use a SSD.

On a side note I have never had any flash drive go kaput after a few dozen uses, not even fail after years of use. You might want to see if the USB ports are damaged or dirty, or if there is a poor quality power supply used or the site might have AC mains power surges causing damage. Granted, I’m not running ‘nix installations from them which is going to be a lot more wear than just regular backup, retrieval, and data transport & software installations uses.

george

Although this drive is really fast, you may not want to use it for this as the Removable bit is NOT set on this drive, and in fact there is no tool to set the bit either. SanDisk just keeps repeating the mantra that Microsoft told them to do it (to be compatible with Win8ToGo).

Hi, nice review, actually just bought the 64gb drive from amazon. Have you considered the DTHXP30 from Kingston? Up to 1tb and pretty decen read and write speeds, at SSD disk price, kind of… I would love to know if those disks are really worth it and if they are safe to use in a macbook pro 13″ retina.
Thank you.

April

Thanks for this review/recommendation (and all the others I’ve used too 🙂

I was curious, I bought a couple of Transend USB 3.0 recommended by another site, and 1 of the 3 has crapped out on me. I tried to use it one that died between my PC and another friend’s MacBook. Did this drive crap out because I tried to use it between the 2 platforms. Just want to know so I avoid creating that problem again (if that’s in fact why the drive crapped out on me after only a couple of weeks use.). Thanks, April

April

Opps, I should have said 32G, doubt it matters, but there’s the last detail. Thx again.

Nate Opgenorth

Awesome article! At the moment I came across this as I want to run windows on my Mac, just getting sick of having to switch to a PC and wanting to throw it out the window because it just doesnt respond like or come close to my 15″ retina MBP. Another way to run an OS or other intensive stuff is SD cards. I have Sandisk Extreme SD cards since I do heavy video work and I’m currently working on a project and needed to clear some space so I took a 32GB Extreme card and ran Call of Duty 4 off of it, ran OS X off of it, watched 4K off of it and did a bunch of read and write tests and let me tell you Sandisk makes good stuff, 45MB/s on the dot everytime in Black Magic Disk Speed Test. I have an Extreme Pro that runs 90MB/s too that I’ll have to test. Main thing with SD cards is the quality of your SD card reader, my rMBP’s internal one is only 1x PCIe but still pretty fast.

Thanks! I plan on doing that once I clear up some large video projects I have mid-way done, I never like doing software updates of any kind in the middle a video/photo project (especially a paid one!) just to avoid any unneccessary extra variables if something went wrong. Also need to pony up for a new USB drive.

SB

Many websites have deemed this the best USB 3.0 flash drive as well. I bought one – great for the most part. It could use a major improvement though in that the USB connection can feel more solid once extended outward in its housing – it has a high springiness to it when pushing it into a port.

Phil

How about Kingston’s DataTraveler HyperX Predator? While it looks bulky and far from affordable, it is available in whopping 512GB and 1TB sizes and with good performance (240MB/sec read, 160MB/sec write). Making it a good match for those with MacBook Air or retina MacBook Pro that craves additional fast storage.

Doc G

Bought the 64 GB SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive for my new 15″ MacBook Pro retina because it was rated the highest. It simply did not function from the moment I purchased it. Could not format it. Packaging assured it would work with the latest Macs. After failing multiple attempts to format I found dozens of posts on the web with the same exact problem. Returned it twice and the replacements performed in the same manner. Thankfully Staples has a great return policy. Mac folks … stay away.

Vox Hochuli

Do these all mount as fixed disks under Windows? Apparently SanDisk has caved to Microsoft’s Windows8 Certification demands and now I can’t right-click the device icon (for the SanDisk Extreme 32GB stick I bought on this review’s recommendation) and eject it in Win7, but have to go via the Safely Remove Hardware wizard in the taskbar. PITA, if you ask me…

bigdunit

I’m living in the past and my Thinkpad X201 doesn’t have USB 3.0 ports. WOuld any of these 3.0 drives give better speeds than the cheapo 2.0 drives?

I don’t believe we reviewed/tested any so we cannot say. Sorry, maybe in our next guide.

DanielNTX

Just bought the Ventura Ultra 240GB USB 3.0 stick for $125 and this one is fast with a Sandforce controller. I’m getting 450 MB/s read and write. Also the drive supports UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol). It blows away any other stick I’ve tested.

nnyan

Very fast and a great bang for the buck but I’ve found that if you use this drive frequently (like we do at work) this thing heats up quite a bit. We’ve all noticed that performance drops significantly as it gets hotter. Not recommend if it’s going to be in constant use.

lasvegascolonel

The article didn’t mention this, but all other reviews say this flash drive is even fast in 2.0 ports which many people still use. So for me, I’ll get it now and use it my 2.0 port knowing my next computer will have 3.0.

Josh McNattin

I use my smartphone as my “thumbdrive” with a 64GB micro sd card, but I’m looking for a 128GB flash drive now to store HD video on from my PC DVR to take on trips and run on my laptop. A flash drive is better for this purpose since it doesn’t require its own power.

I think SanDisk is making these changes across the board for Windows 8 certification, unfortunately. Here is something posted on Amazon reviews that might shed more light on this-

For a limited period in 2013, SanDisk USB Flash drives were produced with Fixed Disk configuration. At the end of 2013 SanDisk reverted to producing USB Flash Drives with Removable Disk configuration.

DJS

Thank you so much for your review. I a Macbook Pro.I already have an external hard drive.(my Passport for Mac).What I am looking for is something that can transfer thousands of photos to my friend’s computer.He has a ThinkPad.What is the cheapest/best way to do this?Is there a way to transfer photos only using an external hard drive,or would this result in everything from my computer ending up on his? We just want to transfer the photos.Thank you so much for this great review and for any feedback you can offer.

Your backup hard drive should be sufficient. Just make sure you have enough space for the photos and the hard drive is formatted so that both your Mac and his ThinkPad. Or you could use a USB thumb drive like the one above – as long as it has enough space.

Here is a guide from PCWorld on how to share a hard drive between a Mac & PC

The drive’s firmware marks it as a “fixed” drive: it’ll show up in the “Hard Disk Drives” section of the Windows Explorer, not “Removable Drives”. As a result, all Windows boot disk creation utilities will ignore this drive, and my Lenovo X220’s BIOS (EFI) will not see the drive as a boot option.

Sandisk changed their policy and drives manufactured in 2014 fix this. However the 16GB Drive I got from Amazon on 2014-06-18 was the old type. I have returned it to Amazon.

I jumped at the new version of the drive mentioned on 2014-07-28, hoping it would solve the problem I had with the previous one as mentioned in my comment above.

It doesn’t. The drive is still seen as a “hard drive” in Windows (not removable), and still not seen by my Lenovo’s BIOS. Again, it doesn’t fulfill my requirements and I’m returning it.

I got the drive from the link provided, and indeed got a SDCZ80-032G-GAM46 (the previous was a SDCZ80-032G-A46). As a side-note, while it did advertize 245MB/s read on the packaging, it only advertized 100MB/s write, not 190MB/s as this article mentioned. I did not do any performance testing to verify this.

Thanks for letting us know! Did you get the 32GB model or the 64GB one? That may account for the discrepancy in advertised write speed. We’re working on updating with a speed comparison of the older and new models, and hope to have it up soon.

We spoke to SanDisk about the fixed vs. removable drive issue, and here’s what they told us: “The Extreme USB 3.0 drive currently is recognized as a ‘local drive’, per the reason you noted below in meeting an earlier Microsoft requirement to support Windows 8. We have not yet reverted this drive back to removable.”

They didn’t have an estimate on if or when they’d be altering the drive to show up as removable.

jlargentaye

I got the 32GB version. Note that this is actually part of the model information I gave: SDCZ80-032G-GAM46. (I realize that model number is an unreliable source of information 🙂 )

Unfortunately there are no large-scale studies of reliability in flash drives, and there’s no way for us to feasibly do one ourselves since that would require looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of drives over a span of several years, by which point new and better drives will have likely come out.

That said, SanDisk is a reliable manufacturer and the Extreme we currently recommend is a newer version of a drive that’s been our pick since July 2013. Myself and a number of other Wirecutter staff own the drive, and none of us have had any issues with drive failures in the past year. Both versions of the flash drive have 4.4-star reviews on Amazon, which means other people have had largely positive experiences as well. Hope that helps!

In two separate CrystalDiskMark tests, (each run five times) the SanDisk Extreme scored the fastest read speeds, averaging 233.4 megabytes per second (as seen above) in a 1,000 MB file test and 228.9 MB/s in a 50 MB file test. In the large file test it was also the fastest drive for writing, at 205.1 MB/s. In the small test it lost to the Lexar Jumpdrive P10 by 2 MB/s. Very close.

DaQuanster

How fast is the SanDisk Extreme in a USB2.0 environment?

Tim

I’m a PC tech shop owner and *so* many of my customers only have USB2 ports…so eulogising about USB3 flash stick is – for now – pointless.

Unfortunately the SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 is a bit too wide – for MacBook Pro at least.
It would fit into a USB port when something is in the next one – even as tiny as the Logitech universal receiver…

I had to replace it with [also tiny] SanDisk 64GB CZ43 Ultra Fit USD 3.0, which cost even less for 64 GB: $32.99 on Amazon sale (vs $45-50 for the Extreme).

To anyone that’s interested, I requested an RMA from SanDisk saying that the non-removability was an unexpected problem with the product. Needless to say they have great customer support and as far as I can tell they actually shipped me the latest version of this drive very promptly and while it still oddly shows up as local in Windows, it’s marked as removable to the OS and I can go to “Safely Remove Hardware” to get it out.

We didn’t test this, so we can’t say one way or the other. If you’re looking for a basic, 32GB, sub-$20 USB 3.0 thumb drive, you might end up disappointed or not finding one at all. You can pick up the 16GB version of our pick for $20

No. I’m not sure anyone has yet. I just heard about them from Gizmodo personally on Thursday. And while the speeds are super & $100 for 128GB is great, it doesn’t fall under the category of “USB 3.0 Thumb Drive”.

Daniel A.

Sorry, not trying to be contentious, but how is it not a thumb drive?
It’s USB 3.0, “thumb”-sized (2×1 inches) flash storage

1. Ruled it out for the same reason we rule out the SanDisk Extreme PRO.

2. Too expensive.

3. Our current pick is plenty fast AND cheap.

Please keep in mind that our unofficial motto here is best for most people.

jholgate

Waaaay too long of an article to read, but I get the idea. I have a Memorex 8 GB USB drive (not sure of the specs) and an LG Cinema Screen 47LM7600 TV that supports USB drives that I was experimenting with tonight. I put a few TV shows on it, mostly .mp4 but one .mkv and they played flawlessly. I still need to tweak the settings on my TV cause even when I set it to my own user settings, it still looked like a Mexican soap opera, but the bottom line is if I can watch TV shows (and hopefully movies) with Blu-ray type specs off a USB drive… Yeah, I’ll be a happy camper. Looking for a 64 GB drive now…

GW74

“Waaaay too long an article” you mean. The “of” is superfluous. Thus your first sentence, ironically, is at least 1 word too long.

Also, your comment is waaaay too long vs the amount of interesting or useful information in it (zero).

jholgate

Have fun with your grammar nazi friends…

My post had plenty of useful info – for anyone looking for a drive like this to watch video files on their TV. It works great, btw. Picked up a 64 GB drive awhile back and it’s all good…

confused0u812

Would like to see mobile storage such as wifi usb for use with mobile devices. Seems like many companies now make them or some sort of mobile router/card reader.

Obviously you have not seen how many fo these drive fail. The SanDisk forum is full of drive that for no apparent reason suddenly become write protected and no longer usable. I know I have just become another victim. SanDisk has been aware of this problem for more than 2 years now! What junk!

Strange, because this model isn’t 2 years old (they just updated this model recently), which makes me think you have a different drive. You should read this guide before commenting.

oldunixguy

amazon is loaded with hundreds of serious failure reviews of this and other sand disk as well as many other manufacturers’ contemporary 64- and 128-gb usb drives. Are you not reading any of these? Lab tests are useless to consumers if there are large numbers of failures. You should include failures and complaints in your analysis and ratings. Ratings are 100% worthless to consumers when the products are failing at high rates. Also your ascertion that consumers are not interested in bootable flash drives I think is way off base.

“Went through all the 1, 2, and 3 star comments–all 67 of them–and didn’t find a disproportionate number of hardware failure complaints. Numerous members of our staff have been using this thumb drive since we picked it, and none have had trouble with the drive failing. (I did misplace one of mine, though, and I’m pretty bummed.)

It’s also important to note that SanDisk offers a lifetime warranty and will swap a defective drive for a new one if it fails in the course of ordinary use. We don’t recommend using this thumb drive as a backup drive–we recommend our desktop hard drive + a cloud backup for that–so a small portion of hardware failures doesn’t impact our recommendation.”

Thanks and have a super day.

John Francis

Just bought a 64GB SanDisk thumb drive on eBay – yes I know eBay’s reputation on thumb drives, but the seller had like 35,000 positives, 99.4%, and insisted her “SanDisk 64GB Cruzer Ultra USB 3.0” was authentic – I had nothing but problems with it, pitifully slow write speeds – also emails would not transfer to this thumb drive. I lost a lot of file due to foolishly assuming they were backed up good on this SanDisk thumb. Did various tests for authenticity and now it cannot even be accessed or reformatted. I learned you never reformat a thumb drive, but what do you do if the drive becomes corrupted and dirty? My Lexar, Transcend and Sony thumbs work great. Just wanted to add my voice to the comments here about a problem with SanDisk failures.

But I LOVE this site, and bought my Brother laser printer because of Wire Cutter’s recommendation and have been very satisfied with it.

So you bought our top pick USB drive from eBay and it broke? Did you contact the seller and tell them you want a refund/replacement? Sorry to hear but eBay = ehhhh.

I know you say that there are lots of people reporting issues on forums, do you have links supporting this? This drive has a 4.7 out of 5 star rating through 1,300 reviews on Amazon. That is an insanely high rating and we’re it to be a serious issue it would not have such a stellar rating. People would be leaving really bad feedback.

Also, not sure what you mean by ‘never format a thumb drive’ – I’ve reformatted/partitioned my thumb drives at least a hundred times and they’re still going strong.

Overall my advice would be to never buy anything you plan to store important things on via eBay. Ever. At least with Amazon you have someone to hold accountable. And Amazon is really great about rectifying a bad situation.

Jim

I’ve had the same problem with a lot of USB drives, of all makes, from eBay. A lot of them are fake / expanded / extended drives. Use H2TestW on them to check their true size, google it to find.

If they are reported fake by H2TestW, then just contact seller and open a case, they generally just give you a refund, some try to blackmail you into giving them positive feedback, but you can ask eBay to step in, if this happens.

Hope the site does an update, for this article, soon. Will probably need to update my 32GB SanDisk Extreme soon to a 128GB drive. Want to see how the 128GB Extreme Pro compares to the other updated IUSb drives out there.

My 32GB SanDisk Extreme boots fine and the build quality looks quite good, for a plastic case. I don’t, and won’t, carry a USB drive in my pocket, just about anything I carry in the same pocket as my keys will get trashed, sooner than later. This includes metal cased items.

Hope this helps and keep up the good work with the reviews.

mrfat

so what’s the best 16gb drive if i want to use it as a bootable OS drive? It seems like the SanDisk Ultra Fit might be the best option but it’s relatively new so who knows how reliable it will be, The extremely small form factor worries me too.

We actually don’t have a pick for best bootable USB thumb drive. Bootable USB drives are a bit on the advanced user side of things, and we tend to cater to the average person that just needs the best USB thumb drive for regular use.

The suggested SanDisk Extreme is mediocre at best. It overheats quickly, and is flimsy and feels like it is about to break inside every time I try to unplug it. SanDsik must be paying you a lot to pick this.

If you want to accuse us of taking money to give a favorable review, you can see yourself out. If you read the thousand+ words above, and look at the test results, you can obviously see there was choice made backed by data and information – not to mention sources that agree with our pick.

We had the Patriot Supersonic as our previous pick and the SanDisk outperformed all other models we tested, and I’m sure after we do our next round of testing, there’s a solid chance that any brand thumb drive will be better. Not to mention we often categorize with a budget option and a premium option – rarely (if ever) are all 3 the same brand.

Just because you had a bad experience (it happens!) with a product does not give you the right to come here and throw around accusations.

David

What about the PNY 128 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive? I’m seeing it on Amazon and Costco for around $35 — which seems like an amazing deal. Wondering if you have any thoughts about the quality/reliability, as I’m not sure PNY is as reputable a brand as Sandisk.

cameronDB

I just picked up the PNY 128GB from Newegg. It’s $49.99 with a 20% coupon [which ends tomorrow] bringing it to $39.99 shipped.

The customer reviews show really great benchmarks so I can’t wait to try it out when it gets here.

no they work fine and the quality is good, their configured wrong, I got them booting now…..someone forgot the “FF” in the partition info and most of the software isn’t smart enough to change it….they boot ok now.

GW74

could you explain what you did re “FF”? I want to install windows via sandisk usb

Rob Da Bruce

the ff is the hex at the start of the partition, tells the bios it’s bootable.

GW74

thanks! how do you edit it?

GW74

scratch that. just got a lexar jumpdrive P20!

matt F

Excuse me if I’m misunderstanding but aren’t the requirements for most bootable drives something like four gig? Why would you waste a relatively fast 32 gig flash drive on that?

Rob Da Bruce

I actually have mine booting, and I use it to image at work so my requirements are much higher than most, and I use a 128 not a dated 32, that was what I upgraded from, it couldn’t do the job I was asking it to.

dbaps

I use them to take with me “on the go.” as a full computer. I build virtual machines and put them on the thumb drives for transportation. I also use Sardu or something similar to build a “rescue disk” that takes up a lot of storage. I keep adding to my menu too. I also buillt a computer with a motherboard that supports UASP. Speeds up the thumb drives. Turns them into high speed SCSI devices with eight lanes.

matt F

That’s cool. When you say “Turns them into high speed SCSI devices” do you mean virtually or are you physically going through one of those SCSI drives with the skinny SCSI connection?

dbaps

I mean when you go and look at the description in device manager on the main page, it drops SCSI into the description of the drive. I should of mentioned this, I have an ASUS Z77 motherboard that supports this upgrade. It only does this on the computers with UASP. No, it’s not virtual. You go into an ASUS USB 3.0 utility. It has normal, turbo, and uasp settings. Not all drives support UASP. You have to look that one up. A good choice is the WD Passport drives that don’t use a separate AC connection. The 2TB drives you can get on sale for $80-$90. So UASP can apply to any USB drive, not just thumb drives. But it has to be supported. I’m sure someone has a list out on the internet of the drives that will take advantage of UASP.

matt F

I see. It only piqued my interest because a few weeks ago i came across a couple of Seagate SCSI 3 drives in my garage (freebies from contract gig I had years ago) and honestly until I looked it up I didn’t really even know what they were and I still don’t what I am going to do with ’em. Thanks for taking the time to chat and teach me some things.

Rob Da Bruce

find someone with an old mac and teez’em

dbaps

I got this drive when it first came on the market. I was one of “those” people. It would not format for a Mac, bad block. It would not allow itself to be a boot drive. This is the only thumb drive I have EVER had that had these issues. I thought it was a fluke and bought a second. It had the same problem. Sandisk was great though. They took the drives back and sent me two replacements. However I realized at that point these drives were made not to be formatted and to only be used for storage and transporting data. I love Sandisk. They make awesome micro-sd cards. But I will never buy a thumb drive from their company ever again.

I even spent half day in Linux with Gparted to try and make this thing a boot drive. No, it did not work. I can’t believe after years this drive is still on the market. I don’t care how fast it is…can’t make it a boot drive? Please, who supports you, Microsoft?

Rob Da Bruce

came up with an easy way, you get the hp utility and format as 32 bit, sorry I don’t have my laptop handy with the names. Then use the free download from active. This will setup the boot partition for you without having to edit or change the petition info in hex, My kid found it after I had spent days hunting through everything til I found an old copy of dos and pctools…

the government man

It comes preformatted with a GUID partition table and your BIOS probably wants a legacy PC one. This is fixable with tools like parted.

Rob Da Bruce

parted didn’t work, I have mine working perfectly.

the government man

It boots fine. Your partition table is set up wrong. This idea that certain flash drives possess some mystical property that makes them unable to be used as a bootable volume is imaginary.

Eugene

Is there a step down pick? Looking at the 8gb range to keep costs down, preferably USB 3.0
Average business use, tends to get lost, etc etc

What’s with the “-GAM46” at the end of the model number? The “Specifications” tab at http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/ lists five different versions of this drive, and none of them end with that (they end -A46 for Americas, -C46 for Canada, -Z46 for China, -Q46 for Australia/New Zealand, and -G46 for Europe/Asia-Pacific/Latin America/Middle East and Africa). Amazon prices are different for these different versions, so what’s different, and why don’t they list the -GAM46″ version?

They’re more than likely regional model codes. Or maybe the newest version numbers since they just released a new model it’s possible it’s only available in a few markets and not worldwide. Will try to find out more.

Our expert confirmed – that is not our pick. It is the Ultra, not the Extreme. Sorry looks like it was too good to be true 🙁

Howard

No problem–appreciate you + expert confirming. Cheers.

node

One potential flaw with this choice that I’d like to ask about – the key ring loop is plastic. My last SanDisk USB stick had a plastic key ring loop and it broke off after only a few months in my pocket. I don’t doubt that it’s hands-down the fastest, but given the size and flimsy construction I’d be interested to hear from others if it survives a few months on a key ring.

Sorry, I’ll try to clarify. The key ring loop on my Sandisk Cruzer USB Thumb drive broke in my pocket while attached to a key chain as the loop was made of flimsy plastic. I’m curious if the Sandisk Extreme is more durable in that regard during long-term use and pocket-carrying.

Which version of the SanDisk Cruzer do you have? It looks like there have been several different loop designs for that model, and I’m curious as to which one broke on you.

“The loop on the SanDisk Extreme is sturdy but also made out of plastic. I just tested it out on a keyring, and dinged up the plastic surrounding the loop quite a lot. Personally, I wouldn’t use it on a keyring because I wouldn’t want the casing to get all beat up, and I don’t trust the plastic loop as much as I’d trust one made of metal.” – via our expert

Those aren’t for the everyday person we make guides for really. While the SSD things are kinda cool, they’re also sort of gimmicky. Something I’d get my tech enthusiast buddy -or I might even buy one just to see if it’s worth it. But it’s not the type of thing you’d recommend to anyone unless they were interested in such a device. Just saying.

I disagree. He called our guide dated, dropped a link to something he preferred and left. That is the equivalent of trolling here. I’m not a journalist, I’m community. That means that I call it like I see it sometimes. I’m sorry if this isn’t to your liking. Have a great day though!

Your guide purports to give us the be-all-end-all of USB drives. He provided a link to one that is possibly better. You got butt-hurt and decided to add qualifications (price) so that your favorite pick still remained on top.

You could have been civil about it and said “That’s a great USB drive for higher end apps but we were looking at cheaper alternatives for average consumers.” Instead you called him a troll. That was pretty immature.

For those of us looking for performance and for whom $35 vs. $90 isn’t a big deal, it might be a better drive. I specifically came here to see what might be the best drive for doing USB OS boots. While I already knew about the Mushkin/Corsair, I still felt it was better than anything described in the article.

We could just as easily be snarky at you and say “just because you can only afford a $35 one doesn’t mean everyone wants that.”

Yours is not the only valid perspective in the world and acting as if it is doesn’t really make for a great “community.”

Thanks for the test. You should absolutely indicate that USB sticks with small memories (smaller than 256 GB) – which probably account for 99% of the market – are suffering from slow write speed. This is due to the fact that they can only address a limited number of NAND flash chips concurrently. People who really want to know what can be achieved in the speed category (and I think what this test was about) need to look at the 256 GB category first – even if they will settle for a smaller memory once they are ready to buy.
A note regarding SSD solutions: they are usually consuming a lot of energy and can heat up to ridiculous levels if they are placed in a compact external case. It’s easy to predict what happens if you need to write your video collection to such a device.

Aleksei

Bought one, after literally a few uses, one of the USB3.0 pins located inside the connector got bent making the drive unusable in USB3.0 mode. This had NEVER happened to me before, as I am a very careful electronics user. So the connector must have been faulty. Go figure, will definitely not buy again.

The recommended flash drive is a full 3 inches long and made of cheap plastic.

Build quality and portability are -the- most important factors in a flash drive for me. Results on performance tests are hardly the be all and end all when most computers I work with are still stuck with USB 2 anyway.

The old DTSE9 – small but not so tiny that you’ll lose it, with incredibly durable metal construction – is still the best flash drive I’ve ever owned, and I’ve gone through a lot of cheap plastic ones over the years.

I have an equally useless Lenovo ‘Workstation’ W540, and it too has no light. So I have no idea when the copying is over, if the drive is still active, when a clean scan is working, if a stream is happening, or over… Maybe the Sandisk responsible person came from Lenovo. If not, they are ripe for a move to Lenovo.

Chris

Maybe the Sandisk person should work for Jony Ive??

MegaMan3k

Thanks for the article, very insightful.

I pay for 105MB Down but I actually get about 20 MB. I already have a DOCSIS 3.0 Modem (a Modem/Router Combo – a Motorola Surfboard SBG6580).

Would it benefit me at all to purchase something like the SB6141 or SB6183 or am I just being screwed over by Comcast? I already have a separate wireless router that I can use.

doug_jensen

Why didn’t you test any 32GB USB 3 SLC drives like the Orico and Kdata? While you were doing that, you could have explained the advantages of SLC over MLC flash drives. Of course the price is higher but you should let users make their own trade-offs of price vs. features, as you have with these MLC drives.

Okc Dave

Because nobody wants a huge expensive low capacity USB flash drive. Those are dinosaur designs and far better would be to just use more MLC chips, concurrent access so you regain the performance AND have higher capacity. That is, if you want a relatively huge flash drive. IMO Sandisk dropped the ball on the Extreme too because it didn’t need to retract, would’ve been better if it were just encased in a durable anodized aluminum shell with a keyring hole on the end.

doug_jensen

If you had explained the advantages of SLC flash drives, you would know why there are people who want or need them. I want and need huge expensive low capacity flash drives, I buy a lot of SLC drives.

jameskatt

I love my SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 Flash Drive. But I wanted more speed.
OWC came out with its Envoy Pro line of USB 3.0 Stick SSDs. You can get the 120 GB model for $119. And it does over 400 MB/Sec sustained for reads AND WRITES. This is true SSD speed. It blows away every other USB Stick. If you want more storage it comes in 240 GB and soon 480 GB sizes. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-drives/OWC/Envoy-Pro-mini

Dave Nethaway

Just picked this up. Very happy with it overall – especially the speed – however, I wanted to offer the following cautions for any fellow IT professionals out there looking to use it in that capacity. First, the problems with using it as bootable media that are mentioned here are mostly true. Especially if you plan to use it to do Windows installs. These problems are well documented on the SanDisk site and I can confirm that I also ran into them. Second is that if you plan on using this on Windows 7 machines, realize that when you plug it into a Windows 7 machine it will not be automatically recognized… it will go through the “installing new hardware” process. Not a big problem, unless you are working with a lot of machines and trying to go from one to another as fast as you can. I was in that situation last week, and using this USB drive was painful. I eventually switched to an old Patriot that has slower read/writes, but saved me time because it was recognized by Win7 more quickly.

You should be able to format it so it works on any Windows machine you plug it into IIRC. No reason you should have to reformat it for every machine you plug it into. Glad you’re overall happy with it though!

Dave Nethaway

It worked on every Windows machine I tried it on, and I never had to reformat it… it is just that our Windows 7 computers didn’t recognize it automatically and first had to go through an “installing new hardware” process before it worked. Whereas with Windows 8 and above, I just had to plug it in and it was immediately, and automatically available.

Naruto

What exactly are the problems with using it as a bootable stick?

I was planning on using it to regularly boot Ubuntu from it, would be great if you could explain it a bit to me.

Thanks a ton!

Dave Nethaway

For me, the problem was specific to booting Windows 7 installation media. That problem is well documented now over on the SanDisk forums (link provided in article above) and there is a work around – but if you do a quick google search for “sandisk extreme usb 3.0 bootable” you will find others who are talking about it too.

David Alexander

FYI– the top pick is definitely the best drive, but it’s still not suited for use as a system drive. It doesn’t do TRIM. For the month I had Windows 8 on it, it became progressively slower and the benchmark results dropped by a factor of ten. I had to format it and re-image to bring it back up to par. This was with over 30 GB of free space.

It’s still fine for troubleshooting and certainly general use. For a daily driver, though, you want an SSD.

Chris

Personally, after all the experience with Sandisk [Cruzers, Sansa MP3 Player (now working great with ‘Rockbox’), CF cards, SD cards and now the Ultra USB 3 drives], I’m going to stay with Lexar (part of Micron Technology – Crucial Memory). Due diligence is needed.

Sandisk has a nasty habit of changing features and quality without changing the labelling.. or mentioning it in their Tech Data sheets. Nuff said. ‘Caveat emptor….”

Calum You

Any suggestions for keychain drives – small ones that I can keep on my keys? Prioritising durability and size.

I agree; SanDisk make great flash drives and always have. I’ve used many flash drives in the past and they always seem to be low quality or slow. I’ve never had any issues with SanDisk’s flash drives and their customer service is fantastic. Good article.

Le Balladeer

Any minimal, strong (preferably metallic), water/dust proof/resistant USB 3.0 pen drive like The Silicon Power Jewel J80 but with a better write speed? (I am looking for 64GB, but even if there’s one really good option at 32GB I can buy it, or an affordable 128GB – I know that’s wishful :P)

I’ll be honest, I have the Jewel J80 and:
1. A friend commented he was getting faster write speeds than was being reported in CrystalDiskMark, when we did an informal copy of about 6 gigs of video the other day. He said 34MB/sec (but again I didn’t see this and it wasn’t a formal test)
2. I find its easy to live with and I can’t think of anything better for living on keys (which can get wet, bashed around etc).
3. It’s fast enough for day to day use

Le Balladeer

I think that’s it. Actually the rugged feature of J80 is more important here. Because keeping sth in your keyring is bound to get a lot of moisture, bumps etc. So yeah I’ll buy it (it’s not available in my country) or sth like that. For the time being I had just bought a ceap 16GB SanDisk but I still need a minimal USB 3.0 very very portable and rugged pen driver.

Tour_of_Rooms

I love this drive but have been personally using the 64GB version alot
lately. However, there is no way I can understand why people are saying
they cannot install Windows using this drive or that it cannot be
configured as a boot drive since it shows up as a fixed drive. During
boot, any drive plugged in via the USB port should allow windows
installation without a hitch as long as your system supports USB boot
devices. Being a fixed disk in windows should not make any differentce
at all and frankly makes no sense. That has got to be some select
individuals with very outdated systems because I’ve been using my
Sandisk Extreme flash drive as a boot drive to install every install
version of Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 tech preview and now, even 10. I really
hate reading something that lends itself to unclear misconceptions. I
wish there was more detailed information about the reported users who
experienced these issues and that it was posted here because I don’t
think those reports are credible users or knowledgeable. That’s just an
assumption of course because I cannot find one instance of anyone with
that issue anywhere online. In other words, there are no complaints in
the message boards of power users who are prompt to report very critical
concerns such as not being able to use this drive as installation
media. I tend to think if it were wide-spread, then maybe it could be a
real issue. But when nobody is talking about it, then the info posted
here was taken from one or a couple random reports that were likely
users with poor hardware support for their system and maybe even lack of
knowledge on how to work with USB bootable media. I’ll tell you my
latest experience:

I’ve done FAT 32 for GPT/GUID, NTFS, and I
never had issues like on so many systems including older netbooks that
were the earliest systems to offer optional boot from the USB. I’ve also
never been hindered like the people who could not create a bootable
installation Flash Drive unless it was less than 4GB back when people
were just getting into this phase of using Flash Drives as Windows
Install Media. I can install from every flash drive I’ve ever used
including up to 64GB with the Sandisk Extreme using NTFS and still was
able to install using the GUID. Don’t ask me how but I can do it even
using a Flash drive formatted as NTFS and still get a GPT partition on
Windows 8. And that is not something I have been able to explain since I
am aware that shouldn’t even be possible. Maybe God is in the midst.

The reason these Sandisk Extremes are so fast is because they use an
SSD controller. Use one to install Windows on a system that has an SSD
Windows will installfaster than anything else we’ve ever had to work
with. It’s blistering and I have to find out more about recent revisions
of this flash drive being un-useable as install media for Windows.
Because I can connect a regular hard drive to an adapter to connect to a
USB 3 port and get it to backup my recovery partition and allow me to
install windows from it. That should tell you that it does not even
mater if you are using a fixed disk or not when installing windows from
media connected to a USB port.

If it does not boot TAILS smoothly I wont recemend. I bought Sandisk usb 3.0 do to this site. But TAILs take extra steps. Kingston Travel star g4 woks with on problem.
Has anybody discovered more like this.

testmanic

please include flash drive with physical write protect switch like kanguru series in the review thanks

How about USB-C? I realize there are only 3 such drives (that I know of anyway), but I would still like to know whether they are worth it or whether I am better off using a clunky adapter with non USB-C drives.

Do you think i’d be able to use it for setting up windows 10 with bootcamp assistant on my 2013 macbook pro?

Matt

OK – so can I, or can I not, use this out of the box to do a clean install of Windows 10?
I want to upgrade from 8 to 10 and then do a clean 10 to get rid of all the crap Dell bloatware that came with the computer.
If I can not use this out of the box to do that, what drive should I use?

Yeah, it ended up being too unclear. Different comments saying different things…
I ended up with the Lexmark P20 (32GB). Same price, better specs and hopefully it will work out of the box as I want it to!
Thanks!

dbaps

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I got two of these when they first came out. First, they go a block error whenever you tried to format them for Mac OSX Extended. NTFS also failed. I was able to get it to partition in Linux but that also had issues. I don’t know if the initial design was bad, the original lot was badly manufactured, but nothing worked. The only thing that did work was to keep it stored as ExFat. I Have NEVER had a drive that did this to me, and I had two that did the same thing. This is why I will never buy another SanDisk thumb drive. I love their SD cards. I also love their customer service. They shipped me two new drives, no questions asked that had the exact same issue. So now I just use the for storage. I agree, they are fast. But I wanted to use them as boot drives, or to actually install a “slow” OS on to run so that I could move it from one physical computer to another.

I’m pretty sure that I could of used the two thumb drives as part of my virtual machine infrastructure either to boot off of .iso’s on them or store the vmdk files.

AbCd121

You should add a budget pick my very own beloved USB thumb drive. It has a 32 GB capacity. It is only a USB 2.0, but that is more than good enough for me.

The most attractive thing about it is its amazingly convenient design (I keep it on my keychain). I would gladly pay double the price for it. It is $10 at Amazon.

You seriously need to update this article; the prices on the competition are extremely outdated. I love Wirecutter, and recommend it often, but less savvy folks are going to be thrown off by this extremely outdated information!

She also noted that cloud storage is improving, and the next big thing will be USB-C.

Are there any massive advances in USB thumb drive technology that we’re not aware of? Not being snarky, serious question. We are unaware of any advancements or reasons that our guide might be extremely outdated.

Derpidy Herpster

The guide is fine, the prices are what don’t line up with reality today. It shouldn’t be too difficult to update what the drives listed here cost today.

I wish I would have know this info earlier too. I’ve been coming to wirecutter to check the price on the ultra fit and kept seeing it was still expensive and didn’t bother to check myself. Amazon pointed me to it when I was looking at another drive today and I bought it right away.

Patrick

He’s talking about the prices mentioned in the Competition section. Though having them automatically update in that context would just confuse the issue. The best solution (when ruling out options due to cost) would probably be to mention a price at which the item would be intriguing and then immediately put an api-updated “(The item’s current price is $~~.)”

My comment was about pricing. I realize this is a huge challenge for you, due to how quickly prices change on these devices, but it might be worth making a note to that effect somewhere at the top of the article? I love Wirecutter, keep up the great work!

j gross

dear wirecutter, i would be interested in learning which thumb drive had/has the best durability for long term use. i dont care about speed. I just want long-term durability. thanks

Our main pick, the Sandisk Extreme, is fast, priced well and has now been our main pick for well over 1 year. It is a really great thumb drive and continues to work well. We suggest it as our main pick.

Chester A. Arthur

In terms of physical durability, the Sandisk Extremes have been disappointing to me. Have broken two of them due to inadvertent bumping into them while they were plugged in. User error, for sure, but they still seem more prone to breakage in this manner. Well worth keeping in mind if one is clumsy.

one note. This Sandisk extreme works about 10x – 30x faster on USB 2.0 as well. You won’t get the max serial read, but most often you do 4K read/writes anyway, 4K random reads are about 30mb/s on USB 2.0 vs about 1mb/s on a typical $5 drive.

Michael

This is something I’ve wondered about for a while, but I’ve not been able to find anything written about it. –When using the (sequentially) faster drives, labled as USB 3.0 (or with SD cards faster than SDHC) on a USB 2.0 based machine, will the Random Read and Write speeds also be slowed? Or will they be equally fast on 2.0 as they are on 3.0? As 4K random reads/writes seldom are faster than 10 MB/s, the max throughput should not be an issue. Does anyone know?

marque2

I actually measured it with CrystalMark. The sustained read is about 30mb/s which is actually fast for a USB2 for 4k random writes i was getting 7mb/s vs 1/2 mb/s for my hard drive. I only have cheepie USB 2 drives, but for th em I was also getting .5 mb/s – so I believe you will get a performance boost even on USB 2

Michael

Okay, thanks. Can you compare the Random R&W speeds on USB 2 & USB 3 on the same machine? I only have USB 2 on current machine. CDM should be fine. Also, I have read–and confirmed when I bought them–that some Class 4 & Class 6 SD cards make as fast or faster Random transfers than Class 10 cards. Samsung has some good ones. Flash promo emphasis is on Sequential speeds, but there’s plenty uses for Random R/W.

You initially dismissed the 128GB Ultra Fit at it’s $120 price, but Amazon now has it at $28 (and lists a $80 MSRP). Maybe it would be worth a look?

dbaps

I will never ever buy this at any price. It is the only thumb drive I’ve ever had that has not allowed me to format the drive and actually install an operating system on it. True, this problem may be fixed as I bought two of these when they first were released. However, this thumb drive, in my case, can only be used for storage with Exfat format. I have two that have the exact same problem so it’s not an accident. Keep in mind that the manufacturer replaced both of my thumb drives about a month after I got them, and the problem was not fixed.

Abresh Arquah

With all due respect, these drives should not be preventing you from installing an OS on them if they are fast enough to support that.